


The Poison

by kitschimage



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dudes Being Bros, Emotional Vulnerability, Feeling Alone In A Crowded Room, Gen, Musings On The Anxiety Of Being Both Widely Known And Simultaneously Unknowable, Venting But Make It Cathartic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29268489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitschimage/pseuds/kitschimage
Summary: Papa II lends a listening ear to his little brother's concerns regarding the price of fame.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28





	The Poison

**September 7, 1999 ∙ Sweden**

Mezzo rubbed at his temples for the second time in so many minutes. It was late in the day. He’d long since discarded his gloves, leaving himself to feel the already-smudged edges of paint descend into further ruin under his touch. By now, summer should have begun its fade, but the bands of sunlight streaming through the overhead windows were warm enough to convert the entire room into a personal convection oven. The atmosphere was thick with the swell of humidity, and while thunder had been rumbling on and off over the horizon for the latter part of the week, it still hadn’t offered to rain. Giving up on the idea that a storm would eventually break and save him from this burning hellscape, Emeritus II let out a frustrated groan, eyes drifting upward to stare at his pathetic excuse for a ceiling fan. The motor had hardly any life left, but the ancient thing still creaked along, doing nothing more than pushing hot air in slow, lazy circles. A ballpoint pen danced between his fingers, its well-chewed cap rhythmically bouncing off the pad of ledger paper on which he was trying to write. It wasn’t that he _disliked_ composing songs. Quite the opposite, actually. Mezzo thoroughly enjoyed music: he liked writing it, he liked listening to it, and he liked playing it. But for some reason, whenever his father asked him to do _any_ of those things, the invisible brakes on the engine that powered his mind screeched to an unmovable halt. He began to hum to himself, desperate to extract any semblance of a melody from the unrefined tune stuck in his head, only to be interrupted by a soft knock from the other side of the door.

“Office hours are _over_ for today,” he growled in reply, refusing to look up from his work. With a loud _crack_ in both directions, he adjusted his neck, clicked his pen, then refocused his attention on the ceiling. The silence had barely closed in when the knock came again, its source leaving Mezzo no time to properly display his annoyance before pushing the door open without further warning.

“Frate?” A voice inquired from behind the crack. 

He sighed, squinting through the haze of dust and brow sweat until he was able to decipher the outline of his younger brother’s face peering at him from between the polished wood.

“You had better be dying,” he deadpanned.

Although upon further inspection, maybe he actually _was_. The always-lively Emeritus III looked like a husk of his usual self, eyes trained on his shoes and hands shoved deep into the pockets of his cassock as he floated lifelessly in the doorway. Mezzo allowed another purposefully audible breath to pass his lips before gesturing to the gloomy scene unfolding before him.

“What the hell is this?”

Terzo didn’t answer. Instead, he invited himself in and made his way to one of the chairs facing his brother’s desk, crumpling himself into a ball as he sank into the uncomfortable embrace of already-warm leather. Chin resting awkwardly on his knees, he then blew the loose strands of hair from his face in a dramatic display of defeat. Mezzo only raised an eyebrow.

“Do you know what sucks?” he began.

“Everything.”

“Yeah, no, for sure. But like, _specifically?_ Do you know what _specifically_ sucks?”

“I have a feeling you are going to tell me.”

Terzo glanced loosely around the room before clarifying the reason for his visit. “Do you ever feel that people only like you because they have no idea who you actually are?”

Mezzo felt his expression soften. He exhaled knowingly, eyes falling closed in thought, and gently put down his pen. The once-open lyric books scattered about his desk were snapped shut as its surface was quickly swept clean. He then stood, smoothing the front of his robes, and looked down at his wadded-up mess of a brother who had all but folded himself into the creases of the chair.

“It is hotter than Satan’s ballsack in here. Let us find somewhere better to talk.”

\----------

Shortly after ditching the heavy chasuble for his much preferred suit-and-sunglasses combo, Emeritus II found himself strolling through the church gardens with his little brother safely glued to his arm.

“Must you?” he asked, glancing down. The humidity outside was rampant, and with the added body heat from the extra pair of arms interlaced with his own, he found himself longing for the small comforts of his shitty office fan.

Terzo only nodded. The pair walked along through an atmosphere of gray and gold, the silence of the evening broken only by the crunch of gravel beneath their shoes. There was something foreboding about the fading sun as it bounced off the cumulus clouds hovering in the distance — almost as if the lingering light itself was the only thing keeping the heavily-anticipated storm at bay. Heat lightning danced over the hills, and Mezzo felt the sweat begin to pool under his shirt collar.

“Alright,” he prompted as they reached the outer edges of their eldest brother’s rose patch. “Spill.”

Terzo registered the request, but couldn’t stop himself from studying the smattering of newly-formed buds covering the thorny bramble that framed their path. The growing season was nearly through, yet somehow Primo was still coaxing new life from the earth even as it teetered on the verge of slumber. For a brief moment, Terzo wished it was _his_ office door he’d opened without invitation. His oldest brother was always so _good_ at shit like this. He preferred listening to talking, which made him fantastically wise in ways Terzo feared he might never be, and nothing seemed to rattle him. Nothing important, anyway. It had been easy to tell him about liking girls and boys, and about how exhausting it sometimes felt to be unable to sit still. Chatting with Mezzo was an entirely different affair. His stoic exterior made it difficult to gauge his reactions during heavy conversations, and this had the potential to create moments of anxiety in which Terzo panicked over how unhinged he possibly sounded. But interrupting Mezzo’s work schedule was a bell you couldn’t really unring, so he thumbed once more through his mental index of everything he wanted to say, then cleared his throat to reply.

“So, you know the poison?” 

“The what?”

“The poison,” Terzo repeated, as if the concept was universally recognized.

“You're really going to make me work for this, aren’t you?”

Terzo rolled his eyes. “So I am up there, yes? On stage. Doing my thing, singing my songs. The audience — they love me! Or so it seems. Always screaming along and shouting my name. It feels so _good_ at the time, you know? To be seen by so many. To be loved. Valued, even.”

He paused, eyes darting back and forth across the horizon as a particularly loud clap of thunder temporarily monopolized his attention.

“But they do not _know_ me,” he continued, “Not really. To them, I am dazzling and handsome and smart. I have nice hair. I have a nice ass. But _I_ know the parts of me that they do not, so I know that I am, in all actuality, nothing close to the person they imagine.”

There was a pause, and Mezzo felt the hand resting on his upper arm tighten its grip. Before he could stop it, a smile crossed his lips. “Ah,” he affirmed. “The unquenchable thirst.” 

Terzo looked up, somewhat annoyed at his brother for withholding explanation when that very thing had just been asked of him moments prior. “The fucking what?”

“You call it a poison, but to me, it is a thirst that never dries out. Not something you purposefully ingest because it feels good, so much as something you are born with and can never get rid of. You want to be loved by many, but that journey only causes you to be tragically unknowable. The more lives you touch, the fewer touch yours.”

Terzo just blinked at him.

“We all feel this, yes? You are not special.” He then paused to correct himself, realizing that might have been too harsh. “You are not alone.”

“We?” Terzo inquired.

“Yes, we. You, me, and Primo, I assume. I cannot speak for our father. Lucifer knows if that man is capable of feeling anything at all.”

At that, they both chuckled. A cool breeze suddenly nipped the back of their necks. The thunder continued to rumble overheard, growing steadily in volume, but neither so much as glanced at the path back to the church.

“You do not actually want it,” said Mezzo, shifting to a more serious tone. “You must start telling yourself that. I know you, _fatello_. You might love attention, but it means nothing to you if it is not coming from the right person. And you love what you do. Honestly, you seem to love it more than anyone I have ever seen. Deep down, this superficial bullshit means nothing to you. It merely feels good in the moment.”

At that, the youngest Emeritus went quiet, eyes immediately trailing along the ground.

“Look,” he continued when there was no response. “We are Emerituses, right? We are musical geniuses by nature. This is not disputable. We write good shit, and we sing it even better. Talent, accompanied only by the inextinguishable need to be continuously recognized for it, runs through our veins. But this approval — the pursuit of it, the desire for it, and the thing itself — that is what you do not want. I know you don’t.”

Terzo felt a warm stab of nausea pulse through gut.

“Alright?” Mezzo prompted. “You d—”

“You do not understand!” Terzo yanked his face up mid-stride to look his brother in the eye. “I _did_ want it! Sometimes I still do! I wanted it all so _fucking_ badly! It became the only thing I wanted until I could feel nothing other _than_ the want! I know it is toxic! I know it is poison! But I have still wanted to drink the goddamn stuff all my fucking life!”

A snap of lightning danced its way across the sky, illuminating their path in a brilliant, other-wordly glow. Its fingers spread across the horizon as steady rumbles trailed in its wake. Terzo took several, calming breaths in an attempt to slow himself down, but once the words started, they just kept coming.

“I would often pick up the bottle and look at it, but I would always put it back down. Until, of course, the fucking floor crumbled beneath my feet. I was falling, failing, and everything sucked. So I decided to finally uncork the vial and drink it's contents. It couldn't hurt, right? That was my thinking, anyways. My world had gone to shit, and nobody knew. So many of the people I once held close were gone. I remember how it tasted too: like absolutely nothing, although it stained my throat and burned the whole fucking way down.”

He paused, eyes dropping to the rocky path that had led them to their current location. “Once you find yourself desperate to bring back those you love, you will do _anything_ , even if these people long since stopped loving you in return. Maybe if I just sing louder, you think. Maybe if I swivel my hips more. Maybe if I can get everyone to love me no matter what I do, those I care about will care about me too. So you begin to take this awful liquid like prescription medicine until you become too sick to lift the bottle. After that, there is nothing. Do you see? Well, I guess that is not entirely true. There is loneliness, restlessness, and pain. Your limbs turn to concrete and your mind fills with fog. Time passes slowly, but also all at once. Drinking this stuff blinds you to its side effects, so you see no immediate cure. And _everything_ hurts. Your heart, your head, your _self_. Eventually, you look up, and even though your eyes sting, you cannot actually cry. But you find the strength to say the one thing you know to be true: that you cannot do this anymore. That there has to be another way. That maybe it is okay to just move _on,_ and close that chapter of your book. And _that,”_ Terzo concluded, his chest deflating and voice returning to its normal register, “is where I am.”

The thunder was deafening now, roaring overhead like a cage of upset lions. The blades of churchyard grass bowed to the force of the front that was blowing in at an unbridled pace.

Mezzo pulled them both to a halt. “Listen to me, _fratello_ ,” he commanded, taking his brother by the shoulders and turning him so they could freely face each other. Just as their progression stopped, the wind began in earnest. It whipped through the trees that comprised the outer orchard, howling across their path as it ushered in a significant temperature drop. Thunder continued to boom overhead, and the hues of gold in the surrounding atmosphere had all but faded in favor of deep ripples of purple. “I wanted it too, yes? I wanted to be loved. To be seen. I wanted the smiles and cheers. I wanted the reassurance that what I did _mattered_. I wanted it. It is disgusting how badly I wanted it.”

He softened his grip on his brother’s shoulders and gave him a reassuring squeeze. “It has been painful, undoing this curse. It has taken years of practice. But I have done it, and I am here, so I am going to give you the antidote.”

Their eyes met, Terzo’s angry, and stinging with tears, but Mezzo held his stare. “You do not do it for them, alright? _Never_ for them, but for you. For the person you know you are — for the person they cannot see. For your mind, and your heart. For your soul. If it is not done for them, then they cannot take it from you, understand?”

And then the storm finally broke. In a matter of seconds, both boys were fully drenched. The deluge held nothing back as it beat against the ground with the entire force of heaven. Their paint didn’t stand a chance in the downpour, and as their faces slowly became a rorschachian blur, Terzo reached up to squeeze the top of the hands still holding him firmly in place. His brother could be full of shit sometimes. After all, this was the guy who would get routinely grounded for making poop jokes at the table when they were kids. But this seemed real. It briefly occurred to him why he had chosen, however subconsciously, to knock on Mezzo’s door earlier that afternoon. There were few people in clergy who would have dared to be so honest with him when faced with such an abstract dilemma. Most everyone he knew would have probably told him some version of whatever it was he already wanted to hear. But not Mezzo. He was nothing if not resilient, and that, whether Terzo had known it or not at the time, was exactly what he needed. 

“Okey dokey then,” he replied in a whisper. “For me.” 

Mezzo nodded. “For you.”

The pair turned, bunching their collars around the necks against the storm. As they headed for shelter, the middle Emeritus managed to nudge his kid brother playfully in the ribs. “You are not _crying_ now, are you?” he asked.

“I do not know what you’re talking about,” Terzo answered with a grin. “As you can clearly see, it is finally fucking raining.”


End file.
